


Break Out Your Problems of Safety and Sin

by stepquietly



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Bad Therapy, Bloodplay, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Femslash, Fisting, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:54:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepquietly/pseuds/stepquietly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It takes four sessions for Alana to figure out the game she and Bedelia are going to play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break Out Your Problems of Safety and Sin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Emerla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emerla/gifts).



> Dear Emerla,  
> I'm so glad we matched and that I got the chance to write this fic for you! Hannibal fandom can be a complicated space to negotiate with regard to kinks, so I thought I'd go with what felt to me like a relatively canon-compliant kink for the characters in question. I really hope it works for you and that you enjoy reading it.
> 
> Many thanks to C. for the awesome beta!

**The first session:**

  
Alana understands the need to restrict the fallout of Hannibal’s influence, which is why Jack’s taken on the task of investigating all of Hannibal’s patients and Alana is tasked with their assessments. It’s why she’s here now, pretending at outcall therapy rather than running the asylum – because Jack needs this. And because while Will bowed out once Hannibal allowed himself to be locked up, that isn’t even half the battle yet.

She’s vaguely intrigued by the theatre of Bedelia’s home. Not ostentatious with clues the way Hannibal’s rooms now seem, but more stripped back and pared down, the elegance of clean lines and careful positioning that scream tasteful restraint. The colours are muted, the chairs soft, the curtains gauzy and thin to let in a careful amount of the late afternoon sunlight. It’s a feminine room that showcases an iron control, a fractured mirror of Hannibal’s dark-edged opulence. Alana can appreciate that.

Her assessment of Bedelia follows much the same pattern, taken in at a glance. Her shirt is an affair in cream silk that is carefully restrained by its slim cuffs around her wrists, brought into order by the waist of a narrow skirt in black. Barely any jewellery but the gold watch around her wrist and the pearl studs in her ears; the armour of “polite visiting” firmly attached to its simplicity. It doesn’t match up with the picture at all that Bedelia’s chosen to paint of a woman bewildered by Hannibal Lecter, drugged and carried off like a packed lunch taken on picnic in Europe. But then it’s probably not supposed to.

Alana wonders if the charade is intentional; if Bedelia, knowing that they see through her charade, claims utter immersion but leaves just enough of the curtain in place to point to the act. She would bet on it being so. If there is anything that Alana has learned, it is that you cannot survive Hannibal and not feel the remnants of your life like an ill-fitting costume. And if there’s anything her time with Mason has taught her, it is that formalities only exist when both parties agree to them. Bedelia’s survival isn’t just the eventual promise of her death, but rather the promise of her being skilled enough at the game to outlast Hannibal’s appetite.

“Dr Bloom,” Bedelia greets, rising to her feet as Alana is led into the room by the FBI agent on call, all courtesy and husk on the edges of her syllables.

Alana nods her thanks to the man, waiting until he hands her the panic switch and withdraws from the room to respond. She drops the panic button into the pocket of her jacket and withdraws her dictaphone from the other, waiting for Bedelia’s eyes to track its silver surface before pressing the button to begin recording.

“Do I refer to you Bedelia Du Maurier or Lydia Fell?” she asks. Begin as you wish to continue and all that. Alana does intend to continue provoking Bedelia until she can ascertain enough cracks in this façade to tear it down properly.

Bedelia barely reacts beyond waving Alana to a seat, waiting until she’s limped her way across the room. The pain is worse today than it’s been in a while. Alana suspects it’s the psychosomatic stress of anticipating this moment, of plumbing this additional connection back to Hannibal. She’s reacted accordingly – dressed herself in her very starkest pantsuit, one the colour of old blood, left the yellowed pearl of the blouse underneath to shine through like bone, put on heels in defiance of the pain and slicked on lipstick to match. Margot had watched as she added each layer to her armour before helping Alana pull her hair back into the low bun she favours, kissing Alana like a sigh before leaving to check on their son.

Alana doesn’t waste energy on regrets anymore, so she doesn’t bother to regret Margot’s disapproval of her choice of heels, even as it takes everything she has to lower herself gracefully into the chair instead of simply falling into its comfort. Instead she notes that Bedelia can read her well enough to stay silent and not offer her assistance, that she retakes her seat and doesn’t awkwardly hover until Alana is finally seated.

After a pause Bedelia responds, “Either would do, though I suppose both felt about as natural as the other. The cognitive dissonance was,” she pauses, seemingly searching for a word that Alana is sure she has pre-prepared, “startling. I felt so absolutely certain that I was Lydia Fell, though I’ve since been reminded by the FBI that I am Bedelia Du Maurier.”

Alana nods. “ _Doctor_ Du Maurier,” she emphasises so that there can be no doubt that she is aware of Bedelia’s ability to manipulate the session.

The edge of Bedelia’s mouth curves. “Yes,” she admits candidly.

Alana considers and discards several approaches as she assesses the situation. ‘You were in Europe with Hannibal when you were found’ is too broad an opening for someone as skilled in manipulation, and Bedelia no doubt expects the question asking her why she would have joined Hannibal any way.

Instead Alana opts for a more specific wound to explore. “I think we all know that Hannibal would’ve easily preferred to have taken Will Graham with him, even after Will refused. If he was going to drug anyone and convince them to go with it, it should’ve been Will. But instead he chose you. Do you have any theories as to why?”

Bedelia eyes her with some amusement. “I imagine I was an easy replacement at the last minute,” she offers.

“So it doesn’t bother you that you were a replacement?” Alana finds it fascinating. Most of the pairings in serial killer relationships would suggest a level of possessiveness on one or both parts, yet Bedelia displays no sign of this pathology nor does she seem to indicate its presence on Hannibal’s part.

“Should it?” Bedelia asks, seemingly serene. “I was a replacement but I think I was adequate. I accepted Hannibal with full knowledge of what he was. And don’t we all want someone who will understand? Someone who has seen a facet of life as we have, who will not flinch from us?”

Alana thinks for a second of Margot, the soft tissue of her scar creeping across the otherwise taut skin of her belly. The fact that Margot pays no attention to any of the scars on Alana’s body other than the still pink mark from her C-section, tends to stroke it deliberately as if to remind herself of its existence.

“Yes,” she murmurs, hand unconsciously rising to press against it now.

It takes her a second to realize Bedelia is speaking again. “I suspect Hannibal favours those who share his fascination with Will Graham. Or, if not, then those that know of and accept it.”

It takes her a second to realise that Bedelia’s reference includes herself and has to scramble not to flinch at the abrupt sense memory of Hannibal’s fingers digging into her back during one of their kisses, the taste of bile flooding her mouth now. Her hands clench into fists on her knees, clearly visible.

Bedelia doesn’t acknowledge the hit though she must be aware of it. “Perhaps I was just consolation in place of Will Graham,” she says and leaves the obvious inference for Alana.

“Yes,” Alana agrees, swallowing this with less resentment than she once might have felt, the two of them sharing a moment of wry agreement. “I’m starting to wonder who wasn’t.”

Bedelia’s eyes seem to glitter at her as she curves her lips, less a smile and more an acknowledgement of the game begun.

* * *

 

**The second session:  
**

****“How do you feel today?” Alana asks, setting down her dictaphone and taking a seat.

“Better now that I’m no longer in withdrawal,” Bedelia says, familiar with this call and response system and just as willing to skip the pleasantries.

Alana runs a clinical eye over her, noting the continued use of long sleeves, this time a dark green silk blouse that dips deep into Bedelia’s cleavage, the skirt that primly sits on her bent knee but manages to accentuate the curves of her calves. She dismisses the frisson of interest that runs through her almost without thought; Bedelia is exquisite but dangerous, and Alana doesn’t think her back can stand many more knives at this point.

Instead she flips open the folder that’s as much a prop as Bedelia’s claims of addiction. “I see here that you had a patient named Neal Frank who died while in your care.”

“Yes,” Bedelia murmurs.

Alana waits for a minute for Bedelia to say anything further, then, when she doesn’t, she continues. “I imagine his death wasn’t anything like this official report estimates.”

“No,” Bedelia says, her eyes fixed on the play of sunlight through her gauzy curtains. “It was not.”

This is as much a rehearsed dance as their greetings and the use of the dictaphone; routine and unlikely to uncover anything new, but Alana forces herself further through the motions. “Would you care to elaborate?” The gap of a week, the daily reminder that Hannibal is locked in her care with as many precautions in his way as she can legally place, and the careful omissions in her reports to the FBI helps calm her nerves. She can afford to take her time with this.

Bedelia gives her a long look. “Neal Frank was referred to me by Hannibal. I was told that Mr. Frank had paranoid delusions regarding his care. Mr. Frank insisted that he’d sought help for a sleep disorder and that Hannibal had deliberately worsened his condition.” She takes a deep breath and drops her eyes to watch her hands smooth her skirt along her knees. “At the time I believed that to be a lie.”

Alana can’t be sure if the dropped eyes are a deliberate blind to focus her interest on the signs of deception or if Bedelia is genuinely distraught; the inevitable problem of dealing with a patient familiar with the markers of diagnosis. She leaves it as a possible option to explore later.

“At the time,” she echoes, making a note of the phrase, the fact that Bedelia has claimed no knowledge of Hannibal’s true nature at that point. Confirming when she made the discovery is crucial to the case Jack is hoping to build against her, specifically whether she knew Hannibal was a danger to society and chose not to report him. “And now?”

Bedelia takes a deep breath and raises her chin. “I believe he was telling the truth.” She pauses and seems to pick her words with care. “Given my… dismissal of his concerns, he believed that I was acting in concert with Hannibal to silence him. He attacked me and I attempted to defend myself.”

Alana watches as she reaches out for a glass of water, her hand visibly shaking as she brings it to her mouth, small droplets slopping over the edges to pattern the edges of her skirt and slide down the length of her crossed legs.

“He died,” Bedelia whispers. It’s a masterful performance.

Alana doesn’t bother to check the file this time. “So he did not accidentally choke on his tongue as you said.”

Bedelia replaces the now empty glass on the table. “No. Hannibal arrived soon after and offered his help.”

Alana purses her lips and leans back in the chair. “You agreed to his terms.”

“Yes.” Bedelia stares at her, stark and uncompromising. “I did what I had to do to survive.”

“And you followed him later…” Alana leaves the statement open-ended.

Bedelia settles back into her chair. “I don’t think being drugged and taken from my home constitutes willingness, Dr. Bloom.”

Alana nods to acknowledge the statement for what it is. “My apologies,” she says for the benefit of the dictaphone. She keeps her eyes on Bedelia’s and sees the answering spark there, the thrill of the hunt racing through her. “Let’s start somewhere else then, shall we?”

* * *

 

****The third session:**  
**

****Alana begins the session by putting aside her cane and leaning forward, elbows on her knees and hands clasped. Her back twinges briefly, but she ignores it for now. “Let’s begin today with some of the lies that you’ve told me,” she says, and watches the way Bedelia doesn’t shift an inch, ever controlled. Breaking that down is the first step. “You said that everyone craves a person who sees them for what they truly are. I’m giving you that chance now.”

“What makes you think Hannibal wasn’t that chance for me already?”

“We both know that Hannibal is too self-consumed to ever effectively focus on anyone else. Even with Will, his interest is partly self-directed. No, I think you would want an equal.”

“Is that what you’re offering me, Dr. Bloom? An equal?” Bedelia’s raised eyebrow conveys her scepticism, ever regal.

It might’ve been effective on anyone else but Alana has spent too long living with Margot in her world for that to be an adequate defence. Bedelia is cut glass and Alana is all too familiar with people who seem deceptively fragile until they slice you open as they break and remake themselves. She’s had to become one of them.

“I’m offering you the chance to be seen,” she says, and waits for Bedelia to really consider her words. She knows their value.

She waits as Bedelia surveys the room, her eyes not really focused on anything as she considers her options. The soft light of the morning does wonderful things for her skin, playing over the soft slopes of her cheeks and darkening a hollow into the base of her throat, picking up small shimmering highlights in her blonde hair.

It isn’t hard at all to see why Hannibal might choose Bedelia, exquisite in her contrasts of rigid control and delicate features. Alana suspects that she herself was a similar choice Hannibal made for his collection – a black queen to Bedelia’s white – though he broke her instead of bending her, sacrificed her easily enough. She’s had to claw her way back across the board as a pawn, hobbled by slow steps and the occasional confrontation, but she’s here once more and better at the game this time.

It should be odd to recognize parts of herself in Bedelia but it really isn’t. Alana has never been a fan of the presumption that therapy benefits from the constant recognition of similarities between therapist and patient – it fosters too close a bond and tends to result in the therapist forcing their own presumptions and solutions on the patient – but she can see the benefit to the approach for an interrogation. Perhaps this is what Hannibal felt when he saw his patients; the occasional similarity. It would certainly explain why he was so often willing to nudge them towards his own ends and for his own amusement. It isn’t just narcissism that runs that approach, it’s immersion in the con. And this is nothing if not a con – she knows it, Jack knows it, and Bedelia definitely knows it. But that doesn’t mean she can’t still play the game to win.

She decides to risk a nudge. “I read the coroner’s report on Neal Frank. There was significant bruising to his trachea that was ante-mortem. Was that Hannibal?” She leans in closer and whispers, “Did you watch?”

Bedelia keeps her profile to Alana and her eyes on the shift of her curtains as she responds, “What if I said that I did it?” She waits until Alana blows out a breath and sits back in her chair to continue. “What if I was trying to help Mr. Frank when he choked? What if he fought me?”

Alana rolls her eyes. “These are a lot of what if’s. You were there. You already know.”

Bedelia finally turns her face to look at her, something in the movement reminding Alana of a snake about to strike. “Have you ever put your fist in someone’s mouth, Dr. Bloom? Have you ever done it when they were choking on blood so the edges were slick and wet, and having to narrow your fingers together and slip them in past the edges of their tongue because you were sure that there was something your fingers would feel?”

She shudders, a light clench of muscles that’s oddly sensual when paired with the husk of her voice, lids dropping over her eyes as if to better remember the sensation. “Do you know what it’s like to get that far and then just… keep going. Your whole hand swallowed up, and they’re just _taking_ it, moaning around it, and you can’t quite believe it’s happening. You’re scared but you’re also excited. It’s slick and warm and there’s not a part of your arm that isn’t feeling it.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “And you’re reminded that blood clings to you.” She takes an abrupt breath. “And when you pull your hand out, it’s so shockingly chilled without that flesh warmth that you can feel yourself shake apart.”

Alana’s caught between a certain amount of shocked arousal and amused horror. “I can’t say that I have,” she says, knowing her eyebrows must be practically at her hairline. That was… not what she’d been expecting.

It might just be a trick of the light, but for a moment she imagines she reads disappointment on Bedelia’s face, immediately smothered under her usual stoic expression. The sight of it sends a thrill through Alana, a hot clench of excitement more than equal to the far more abstract arousal she’d felt during Bedelia’s recounting. Here at last is a reaction that isn’t one carefully modulated performance, even if it’s only her brief disappointment that Alana is unable to comprehend this supposedly defining experience.

“Yes, well,” Bedelia pauses to rearrange her legs, cross her wrists on her knee, “do you imagine you see me clearly now, Dr. Bloom? Have I satisfied your curiosity?”

Alana chooses her words carefully, the urge to push harder clawing at her. “I think you’re beginning to. Do you feel better for having been truly seen?”

Bedelia turns her face again to watch the curtains shift in the breeze. “No,” she says dismissively, “I don’t.”

* * *

 

****The fourth session:**  
**

****It’s nearly three weeks since their last session that Alana is finally able to arrange for their next one. As a consequence of Bedelia’s physical evaluations now indicating that she’s no longer in need of regular medical attention, Jack’s had to deal with the Italian government’s attempt to extradite her. Alana can see their case: they want someone to stand trial for murders on their soil, and since Hannibal is no longer available, they’ve shifted focus to Bedelia. But neither she nor Jack (nor the government, for what it’s worth) are particularly keen on the idea of allowing Bedelia out of their control until they’re sure of precisely how involved she’s been in Hannibal’s actions.

As a result, Alana’s spent hours compiling a report that supports keeping Bedelia stateside, reading and re-reading the transcribed records of their last three sessions, then discarding paper to listen to the recordings over and over again, checking for missed nuance, for possible openings. It means she’s had Bedelia’s throaty voice in her ear describing Neal Frank death over and over, the carnality of it somehow emphasised by Bedelia’s visceral descriptions. Alana’s listened to the way she describes the warm flesh of his throat, the hot wetness of it, closed her own eyes and imagined the clasp of it around her own hand.

In the odd fantasy that she’s allowed herself after these sessions, it’s not a throat that she imagines, nor is Neal Frank involved. Instead it’s Bedelia, her lips curled at the edges in that regal smile, like butter wouldn’t melt, while Alana fingers her carefully, moving from two fingers to three, eating her out slow so she’s wet and gasping, clenching down around the stretch of four. She imagines placing her other hand on the curve of Bedelia’s belly, holding her steady as she narrows her fingers together and eases them in, imagines the soft, slick heat that would catch on the curve of her thumb joint, then stretch and let her through. The way she’d be able to curve her fingers into a fist eventually, slowly but surely, Bedelia shaking around her and held prone only by Alana’s hands, one spearing into her and the other pressing her down and steady, the flutter of her cunt around her wrist.

She hadn’t thought this would be something she might genuinely want herself or learn to crave. But she can’t deny that just the words, just the mental images are enough to have her wet and gasping, sticking fingers in her underwear so she can get off, barely started before she’s already cresting her first orgasm.

She’s had a conversation with Margot about the idea of it, carefully negotiated, the two of them discussing Alana’s fantasy, the fact that when she imagines fisting, it’s not Margot but Bedelia she chooses to see.

“It may be that this is part of the manipulation. Hannibal certainly would have exploited it,” Alana had said contemplatively as they lay in bed together, her hand moving over Margot’s naked back as they stared up at the canopy.

Margot had leaned in to bite gently at her lower lip, a reminder of who she was before she kissed it better. “So what? If you don’t play the game, then you’ll lose. And Vergers will never be losers.” She’d eyed Alana, hair tumbling around her face and eyes sleep heavy. “Besides, you want it so you might as well have it. And then, when you’re done, I want you to come back here —” she leaned closer and let her hair curtain Alana’s face as she leaned in for the coming kiss “— and let me try it for myself.”

Alana has been thinking about it ever since. The attempt at seduction was intentional on Bedelia’s part; she could be assured of that. But the intended outcome was complicated. Did she plan to control Alana the same way Hannibal once had, mixing sex in with the occasional manipulation? Did she truly think Alana would be that weak again? Or did she plan to expose Alana once she violated therapy guidelines? That would then mean that any attempt at convicting Bedelia for her crimes would always be fraught with Alana’s misconduct. It might even affect Alana’s control over Hannibal’s incarceration. There was too much to lose.

On the other hand, she could take a page out of Will’s book and forge this connection, see how much Bedelia might be willing to give up to be _known_. There were ways she could make this work, if she wanted.

It’s on her mind as she crosses the room, locks eyes with the FBI agent. He nods, trusting that Alana is the sort of person who will always follow protocol, like the ghost of who she used to be still overshadows what she’s willing to do, who she’s willing to become to win at this. He shuts the doors behind her as she crosses to where the two chairs sit facing each other, Bedelia already seated and waiting for her.

“Dr. Bloom,” she greets, and her silk blouse is edged with lace today, the shiny black of it in stark contrast against the paleness of her skin, the soft white roundness of her pearls. She looks like you couldn’t touch her, haughty and elegant as she is, and Alana wants nothing so much as to make her flush and sweat, to have her look at Alana and _see_ her.

“Please, she says, voice as warm as velvet over steel, “call me Alana.”

Bedelia seems to take her measure again, eyebrow raised and the corner of her lip edging upward in seeming bemusement. “Of course.”

Alana bares her teeth in a smile. “Let’s get started.”


End file.
